then her father heaved himself clumsily to the door. He glanced back at his wife and she nodded.
“Might as well,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Good night, love.”
Again Betty took a kiss, then after her parents had gone upstairs, she sat finishing her supper and thinking. She was satisfied at last. Her three-man test was at an end and it was time for decisive action.
She got up and snatched down a coat from its hook, then she hurried through the darkened shop and opened the front door. There was no sight nor sound of Tom returning with Herbert’s car. The long stretch of Langhorn’s High Street outside was deserted save for a single bicycle lamp very bright and far away.
Betty watched it with a kind of detached interest as it moved under the widely spaced and dimly glimmering street lamps. As the cyclist came nearer she caught a vision of a white sweater.
It looked very much like Vincent Grey’s figure, though what on earth he was doing cycling through Langhorn at this hour of night—and in the opposite direction to where he lived—she could not imagine. He occupied rooms in Lexham, a town he had left ten miles away by now.
He was cycling hard, and fast—streaking under the lamps.
Betty hurried to the edge of the kerb and stood waiting.
“Vince!” she cried, as he swept past on the other side. “Vince, where are you going? What—”
She stopped. For the briefest instant he turned his face towards her and the expression on it gave her an inward shock. It was deathly white, gleaming in the momentary lamp light from exertion or emotion, and his eyes stared fixedly, unseeingly. He looked like a man who has seen some unimaginable horror and is fleeing from it as fast as he can go.
Then he was on his way without a word of acknowledgment, his dynamo whirring. Dumbfounded, Betty stared after him until he turned abruptly round the next corner on the right. For some reason he had gone into Riverside Avenue.…
Why had Vince ignored her? Why was he cycling like a madman through Langhorn at ten minutes after midnight? That he was pretty irresponsible by nature Betty, knew well, but he was not crazy.
She hesitated over walking to the corner of the avenue into which he had turned—then pride prevented her. If he wanted to ignore her, all right! So instead she looked up the high street for some sign of Tom Clayton or Herbert. She waited quite ten minutes or more, then she turned to go back into the shop. Just as she did so, she saw something that had only just come into being. It was a red glow wavering in the dark, misty sky. Hayrick on fire probably, out in the country. They often ignited in dry weather like this. The puzzle of Vincent Grey was more perplexing.…
But Betty stood looking at that waxing and waning glow and wondering. Funny thing, it might even be about the spot where she had left Herby. Surely Clayton and he had not somehow set the old car on fire?
Betty was feeling tired after her day in the fresh air, and in no mood to solve such a vague a problem. It would demand all her ingenuity to explain Vincent satisfactorily to herself. From what had he been fleeing?
She went back to the shop doorway and stood waiting—but there was no sign of Tom Clayton coming back with his truck. Maybe he had decided to make a repair on the spot instead. In that case.… Betty turned inside and bolted the shop door, returned to the kitchen and hung up her overcoat. After a final glance round, she switched off the light and went up to her bedroom.
She undressed in the dark with the curtains drawn back so she could watch that red flicker across the fields. Even when she got into bed, she could still see it as she laid her head on the pillow.… Then gradually, as the clock down in the kitchen struck half-past twelve, the glow finally expired. For another ten minutes or so she lay in the dark room listening for the noise of Tom Clayton’s returning truck, but it did not come.… Tired out, she fell asleep.
She was awakened again while it was still dark by remote concussions. They sounded exactly like somebody banging on the shop door. She stirred lazily—then the banging came again. It was the front door of the shop!
She sat up as her father’s heavy tread lumbered past her door in the passage outside. Tensely, she sat listening. The air seemed charged with an inexplicable feeling of dread, as if ghosts were abroad in the shadows, hovering—
Her ears caught the sound of mutterings from below. Then the mutterings ceased and her father’s steps came upstairs again. The boards creaked outside and then he rapped sharply on the door.
“Betty you awake?” he asked sharply.
“Yes, Dad.…” She swept her gown from the bed head and scrambled from between the sheets to slip it on. “What’s wrong?”
“Come downstairs, will you? The police are here. Inspector Morgan wants a word with you.”
Inspector Morgan? Police? Betty groped round blindly for her slippers, found them. Drawing the girdle of her gown tight, she pulled open the bedroom door. Her mother, similarly attired, was just approaching along the landing.
“Can’t understand this, Bet,” she breathed. “You go first.”
For some unexplained reason Betty was trembling as she half tumbled down the staircase and into the kitchen. The light dazzled her for a moment. Dazed, she looked at two vaguely familiar figures; she’d seen them both about Langhorn from time. One of them was tall and young in a constable’s uniform and helmet with three stripes and a crown on his sleeve. The other was shorter, immensely broad, having a shiny peaked cap instead of a helmet.
Her father was standing by the fireplace. Her mother still hovered in the doorway. Betty crept forward, hugging her dressing gown modestly about her, her blonde hair streaming loose.
“Sorry to disturb you at this hour, Miss Shapley, but it’s important. “I’m Inspector Morgan of the Langhorn Constabulary.”
Betty nodded. Morgan was solid and power-packed, his face square. Densely thick eyebrows scowled down over hidden eyes.
“This is Sergeant Claythorne,” Morgan added, nodding to the young man by his side.
“But—but what’s wrong, Inspector?” Betty asked, struggling still with sleepiness.
“No sense in wrapping things up, Miss Shapley. Herbert Pollitt has been murdered.…” An unfeeling, brutal statement at that hour in the morning.
“Mur—murdered!” Betty was abruptly wide-awake.
“But it’s impossible!” her mother declared, horrified.
“Afraid not,” Morgan said. “He was found tonight by Mr. Clayton from the garage next door but one—found battered to death! He reported the matter to us and made a statement. It seems that you, Miss Shapley, asked Mr. Clayton to go and tow in Mr. Pollitt’s car. Is that right?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” Betty agreed. “But—but how was Herby murdered? It just can’t be!”
“I know it’s a nasty shock,” Morgan said, softening slightly as he always did before youth in distress. “But it’s true. His head was found terribly battered. And whoever committed the murder then tried to burn the body. The car was set on fire, and Pollitt’s body and clothes show distinct signs of burning.… However, these details are for the Police to
